Final Test and Evaluation of Learning.

Final test
I gave myself the final task of Advanced skills unit is the Running with purpose and in camera set. When I chose to practice animation skill in Advanced Skills Unit I expected to relate my practice to the group project which is called The Growing Planet.
The basic animation of the main character in the original animatic was walking down the ship, running away, run and chase the creature and some other slow and quite act, so I decided to test The Chase Running. Although the group changed idea a bit, we cut off all the running scenes but I still want to practice the shot.

So I break down how the chase running look-like:
- The head maybe turn around sometimes like looking for something. It leads to the upper body turn follow.
- The running slow down sometimes and faster sometimes.

However I have not accomplished my task. I have some problem when I tried to using Trax editor, then mess up the animation. I understand how Trax editor work basically and what the effect of it but I am lack of experiment and met some problems that I have not solve yet. For example:
- I made a clip of running within 13 frames. When the timeline run out of frame 13 the leg still cycling but the upper body keeps still. Then I can not make other animation on the same character that I think It suppose to able to do.
- After create character set I could see some keyframes I just add after made a clip on the timeline.
- After make a clip I couldn't fix the animation even in Graph editor that I think it suppose to be able to do.

So, I ended up with the test below.
I used different model in the test because I think it is similar to our group project character and I need to practice with different rig as well.

Evaluation

Before i started this unit, I had rarely using Maya and doing animation without understanding the theory. Create Walk and Run cycle is the fundamental skill that every animator have to learn so doing these animation gave me a great value to myself. I have been able to go into more detail of how the characters will move after breaking down the timing, spacing, weight, the movement of upper body and so on.

I didn't finish all of the tests, nor have done as many tests as I would like to but what I have done will be put into great practice. Now i believe have a better knowledge of doing it and feel i can do it well and  will be better with more practice. I think this unit has allowed me to gain a better knowledge and understanding of doing animation and using Maya. I would like to believe I could go into this profession when i leave Uni.

Running forward.

I was checking the side view and saw the running was a bit like robot. I think the problems is the upper body move rigidity.
 

- The Chest need to bend back more in the pass position.

- Maybe the head moved too much.

- Arms were too rigidity. I just used shoulder controller and forgot about elbow and wrist controllers. It need inertialess move in the arms to make it look naturally.
And shoulder, hip need to reconsider.

So I fixed the problems and I think it's look better.

Running forward.
I was using Trax editor to make running cycle into clip so it's easy to manage and make a loop animation. In order to cycle the running I translate follow axis Z at first but the feet look like it drifts back a bit when it hits the ground, so I had to check every single frames and offset the global control to make sure when the feet hit the ground it's in the same location in every following frame. I just have to do it in 25 frames then using graph editor to make the cycle with offset. So the forward run looks great.

Here is the forward run test:

Trax Editor.
I used Digital-Tutors to learn about Trax Editor.

The advantage things of using Trax editor that I have learnt are:
- To control the speed of the animation.
- To make an animation loop.
- Helpful for blending between animations. In Trax editor I can blend any number of motion clips and also split, merge, trim, cut, copy, and paste motions.

Running test - The top body.

It was really handy for using Graph Editor to set key for the following acts. 

In this situation I selected gravity controller, back controller and chest controller to set rotate key in order to give a forward lean to top body, then using graph editor to move curves like image below.

The reason of doing this is the acts is the same (moving forward) but it is not happened at exactly the same time, an act happened bring about the others, and their intensity are different.

One thing that I learnt from Digital Tutor's tutorial is make sure the move cycling from frame 1 to frame 25 if we want cycle the animation or make it to track clip. It means I have to add key at frame 1 and frame 25.

I found the most difficult thing when working with top body is the movement of shoulder and hip.

In Muybridge's the running man I can see that the hip twist follow the forward leg, the hip go down when the feet hit the ground. It happens obviously in the passing and the high position.

About the shoulder it seems depend on the move of arms. I add a bit rotate Y on scapula controllers to twist the shoulder close to the body when the arm moves forward and open when the arm moves backward.  

I put more sway up/down on the hip and I think it looks better.

Timing. Test running started from bottom body.

Test running using Richard William's reference

In the tutorial from Digital Tutor: How to create Walk cycle 

There is one inbetween frame between contact frame and passing frame but in Richard William's has 2 inbetween frames. So I break down timing like this:

Here is my running test using Digital Tutor's model. I'm just done the bottom of body and I'm quite happy with the result generally.

I'm going to move on to the top of body in the rest of this week.